Aegeon: The Frame That Holds the Farce
First appears: Act 1, Scene 1
Aegeon opens the play condemned to death. A Syracusan merchant in Ephesus, he faces execution unless he can raise a ransom by nightfall. He cannot. He tells his story to the Duke and it contains the whole history of the family separation.
His narrative (storm, separation, children lost) is earnest where the play around it is farcical. It establishes stakes that the comedy then proceeds to ignore for four acts, before resolving everything in the final scene when his wife the Abbess appears.
He does not know his wife is the Abbess. He does not know his sons are in the same city. The play keeps him in ignorance while the audience knows everything.
Key Scenes
Famous Quotes
“A heavier task could not have been imposed Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable.”
Aegeon — Act 1, Scene 1
“O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last, And careful hours with time's deformed hand Have written strange defeatures in my face.”
Aegeon — Act 5, Scene 1
Themes
Other Characters in The Comedy of Errors
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